Chuck Sweeny: A look at county fairs past, present and future

This time of year my mind wanders back to my childhood, when my parents took me to the Ogle County Fair. They say getting there is half the fun, and I always was thrilled when Dad took our ’55 Nash Statesman Custom down Kennedy Hill Road at, well, let’s just say a hig...

This time of year my mind wanders back to my childhood, when my parents took me to the Ogle County Fair. They say getting there is half the fun, and I always was thrilled when Dad took our ’55 Nash Statesman Custom down Kennedy Hill Road at, well, let’s just say a high rate of speed. He told me how, in the “old” days when automobiles were just catching on, if your car could make it up Kennedy Hill Road, you knew you’d bought a good one.

The fair I knew was at its old location on Illinois 2 at the north end of Oregon, surrounded by big, old trees that provided plenty of shade from the hot sun. I have happy memories of Dad standing at the fence watching the trotters race. He loved that.

We didn’t live in Ogle County, but Dad’s family was from there. My great-grandfather Thomas W. Sweeny, a Civil War veteran, has his name on the monument at the old courthouse. (They misspelled it Sweeney, something that happens a lot.)

That gets me — finally! — to Don Ellingson. He farms north of Poplar Grove in Boone County. Don and his wife, Genevieve, grow corn, soybeans and alfalfa and have Holsteins.

Don is a frequent contributor of letters to the editor and op-ed columns. When he calls I always learn something. When he called Friday, we started talking about county fairs. Don, I discovered, must have broken some kind of record.

“I have shown cattle at the Boone County Fair every year for 79 years, and this year will be my 80th,” he said. Before he started showing cattle at 10, he’d been a yearly visitor since his mother first took him as an infant. He’s 89. We talked about how fairs have changed.

“If it weren’t for the livestock, a fair is just another carnival. When county fairs started in the 19th century they were mostly farming competitions. Over the years they added entertainment and other attractions to get more people to come there,” he said.

“Today, a lot of people never see the livestock competitions. It used to be there was a parade of blue-ribbon winning livestock past the grandstand, but that hasn’t been done for years.”

Ellingson said wryly that attractions also changed as fair boards came and went.

“When a pony guy was president, ponies were the big thing. A guy with draft horses became president and we had a lot of those. When a tractor pull guy was on the board, the tractor pull became popular. Once upon a time there were horse-pulls, but I haven’t heard of a horse-pulling contest in years. Now they have demolition derbies with combines.”

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The Ellingsons have four sons, one of whom farms with them.

“We have grandchildren and great-grandchildren who are showing or who have shown cattle. ”

Over the years, the Ellingsons have shown cattle at the Illinois State Fair and livestock competitions. “I know my dad was showing in 1924, and he may have started earlier than that.”

County fairs cater to city folks because there aren’t that many farm families anymore. Ellingson closed his milking operation this year.

“I talked to a mail carrier who told me that when he started delivering mail in the 1970s, he delivered 135 milk checks every month to dairy farmers in Boone County. Today he has fewer than 20 milk checks to deliver in Boone,” he said.

And what of Ellingson’s future at the fair?

“This might be my last year showing cattle. I’m not saying it will be, but 80 years is a long time,” he said. Whether this is his last year in the exhibition barn or not, the fair board should award Ellingson a blue ribbon, a plaque, or name something after him. He’s as close to a permanent fixture as they’ll ever have.

Your assignment is to go to a fair and have fun. The Stephenson County Fair’s last day is today; the Ogle County Fair is from July 31 to Aug. 4; the Boone County Fair is Aug. 6 to 11; and the Winnebago County Fair is from Aug. 13 to 18.